


ring the bells

by gaytimetraveller



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, anyways welcome to my fun lio backstory, i mean. kindaaa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytimetraveller/pseuds/gaytimetraveller
Summary: As far back as he could remember, Lio Fotia had wanted to dance, just like the way fire did, like it always had for him.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	ring the bells

Lio had always wanted to dance.

In truth, he’d wanted many things as a child. From the fencing lessons he practically begged his parents for, to one of those expensive charm bracelets, to a nearly endless request for rollerblades and books and something _cool_ like one of those leather jackets his parents turned their noses up at. And once, a horse.

But most of all, above everything else, Lio Fotia wanted to dance.

One of the earliest things he could remember, from when he’d been no more than three or four years old, was being back at the old house. They’d lived out in the countryside, and in the living room there had been a grand fireplace. He would sit in front of it, watching the flames inside dance. They flickered in a way that was both delicate and wild; precise but unrestrained. Twirling and swirling better than the best ballerinas on television, captivating in a way nothing else was.

There was no music aside from their twinkle, the way all flames jingled like tiny bells, at least to Lio. Sometimes, they even seemed to wave, taking their bows as the fire dwindled down and thanking him for his rapt attention with a warm ringing.

They never spoke of it, but when Lio had been five they’d gone to visit his grandparents, back across the ocean where they’d lived far before he could remember. Something happened, that time, something that had frightened his parents deeply.

They’d all gone into the city to see a show that night, and despite how late it was by the time they were home, his parents had been content to let him stay up as everyone sat in the parlour. Lio had always wanted to dance; like fire, like the dancers on television, like the twirling ballerina in his music box, and going to a ballet had only cemented that he _knew_ it.

His grandmother was pouring wine while his mother sipped a glass, and he spun and spun and spun on one unsteady foot like a spin-top, nearly tripping over his own feet to stop when his grandfather stoked the fireplace, and oh, those flames were more brilliant than anything. He fumbled to a stop, gingerly making sure his hair was still tucked into his headband as he kneeled down in front of it.

Lio’s eyes were wide with wonder as the flames seemed to dance anew just for him, their performance just like the ballerinas, just like him. Without even thinking, he leaned forward to lift a hand and—

A glass shattered, and when he tried to turn his mother had already caught him by the collar, frantically yanking him back when his hand glanced dangerously close to the fireplace.

He hadn’t understood, then, why she’d been so upset. Why there had been tears in her eyes when she’d asked why he had done it, and he only pouted and said he was only trying to say hello. Or why his grandmother had covered her frown with one hand, and no one had dared say a word to his father when he came back into the room with a box of sweets.

Lio knew he couldn’t tell them he had bid the flames goodbye before, that he wasn’t going to stick his hand right into the fire. He would only go so close that they could lick by his hands, just enough for their heat to tickle at the tips of his fingers.

When they returned home, his parents announced that they were moving into the city. It wasn’t far, their countryside home was really more on the outskirts than truly out in the country.

“It’s for school,” his mother had said, unbuttoning his coat as they stepped indoors. “And for work, as well. But you’re going to be in school now, and remember the one we picked? It’ll be too far to drive every day.”

He frowned as she hung up her own coat and she smoothed down his hair. It had never been an issue before.

When he turned back around and saw him frowning at the floor, she sighed. “Oh darling, you can’t stay at home with tutors forever,” she walked past, clicking her tongue and patting his head.

“I want to dance,” he said, trailing behind her like a duckling. The house already seemed unusually bare.

“Of course, honey. It’ll even be easier to put you in lessons in town.”

Their new house, just as lavish as the last, didn’t have any fireplaces. Not real ones. Lio crossed his arms and squinted when he saw his father turn on one in their new living room with a mere switch, then pouted when the flames were dull and silent and sealed behind thick glass. And even that, he wasn’t allowed to go near, sealed as it was behind dainty little metal bars. Prisoners, he thought. Childish as it might be, and fit for a child as he was. Not even real ones, but still prisoners. (He wondered, at times, sitting stubbornly in front of the fake fireplace he wasn’t allowed to touch, which side was better. Which side was free. Did they cage real fires in like that too?)

* * *

As much as Lio was an intelligent child, he never quite understood his parents paranoia around fire. When he was that young, the Burnish were rarely more than a vague notion that existed in news reports he wasn’t allowed to watch. So, as intelligent as he may have been, it wasn’t too hard for his parents to coax him away with those promised dance lessons, and anything else that might’ve worked.

But that wasn’t to say he _forgot_ about the fire.

It was rare to catch sight of a flame in the city, at least in person. As he grew older, they were all over the television, or the rumours that spread through school, about Burnish and arsonists and news stations his parents couldn’t keep him from seeing forever. But the flame on the screen was never the same as it was in front of him. They were eerily silent secondhand. He didn’t like it.

Everything was awfully quiet, without the fire.

He could go months without seeing a spark in the flesh, but it always seemed to linger at the back of his mind, like low burning embers. Even when things grew busy, when he had school and dance and other dastardly _obligations_ , there were still the days when he was walking home alone, or dry summer nights when he would open his window, and no wind would come through while the sound of sirens blared distantly, only to be overpowered by a ringing both further and closer. That song was like nothing else, even from so far away, and it would swim between his ears with an ebb and flow that he wished would never leave, warm and comforting as it settled in his head, in his hands, in his chest.

When it was especially close, once even nearly within his own grasp, that heat had pulsed in his chest, not like his own heartbeat but rather like a drum, like a star; like another living pulse.

But then it would leave again, and the space it left behind was cold and hollow and scratching. Sometimes, if he really tried, it would linger. Just for a moment. Only ever for a moment. Then it flickered and faded, not gradually but all at once, like dousing a candle wick with one final strange beat echoing under his skin.

It left a taste like bitter ash in the back of his throat, and sometimes even a trembling in his hands that didn’t seem to want to leave. Lio wished he could say catching sight of a flame was all the sweeter for all the days of its absence, but it only made those absences chillier with every time.

It wasn’t like it was the only thing he thought about; life was busy, and increasingly complicated, and the fire wasn’t the only thing that always burned in the back of his mind.

It became simply one more thing, another secret locked tight in his chest, sealed behind his ribcage as if the bones were iron and ice. So he bit his tongue and swallowed down the words, and each one was harder to swallow than the last, like eating unmelting ice, gradually freezing the harsh metal of his bones and locking away the star in his chest in a cruel frigid vault. At first it made him sick, nauseous on a near regular basis, like it was all coming back up his throat. Then it turned his fingers cold, his limbs ice-numb, a strange-pale-tacky-distant sensation that burned in it’s own way, something like pain even real heat couldn’t ease.

He would rub at the goosebumps on his bare arms and it felt like his skin was coated in some invisible layer, pulling it too tight and leaving touch a distant buzz of noise and ache, like it wasn’t quite his own any more. Something stifled in his chest almost cried out sometimes, when the cold crept in too far, with a sound like radio static and impossible colours flashing somewhere behind his eyes, coalescing into words he couldn’t understand. It was a relief. It hurt.

Some nights, alone, he would shake desperately with the effort of keeping it all in.

But still, Lio Fotia wanted to dance. It was work he could drown himself in, something he could throw himself into with fervour when everything else was numb, when his veins and limbs and bones themselves turned cold from the ice that crept forth, whether from his chest or his fingertips.

If he was being honest, dancing reminded him of fire. It may not have eased his aches, or lit some soft kindling in his hands, but it made the numbness itself distant, like all he could feel was the flare of heat in a core buried deep in icebound casing.

* * *

Lio was thirteen, when he was given his first shoes. It was a dream come true, even when that meant he came home with blisters and aching feet, with calluses and sore joints. Not that it mattered, really, when his limbs may as well have been those of a delicate statue for all he felt in them.

School was a cruel drag, an exercise in patience and endurance, in putting his head down and doing his work and grinning and bearing it all until he could be cut free. The uniforms were stiff, always hot in the summer and cold in the winter, their dress flats more uncomfortable than any pair of tightly laced pointe shoes. Home was boring, with his parents often either absent or wary, so most days were homework, dance practice, and the afternoons alone when, of all things, television space documentaries would leave him enraptured for hours.

It was when he first got to lace up those shoes alone, sitting silently in his room after months of training and waiting and wishing, that he realized. He had been told, many times, that it would not be easy, that it wasn’t merely child’s play. So when he stood up properly, and they were hard and cruel and almost made his ankles shake, he only smiled when he saw himself stumble in the mirror, almost with some breathless delight.

Of course it wasn’t easy, wasn’t to be trifled with by fools who couldn’t hold their own weight. The challenge of moving as if weightless wasn’t just a proof of grace, of precision, of eloquence; it was a test of strength, and he grinned wide when he stood again, more stable, looking every bit as effortless as it would never be. It would make him stronger.

If there was one thing Lio hated, truly despised, it was being perceived as his mother’s delicate child.

After that, when he saw himself in the mirror, worn out after long days of school and late nights of dance, sometimes he would smile something fierce and burning. It wasn’t joy, but maybe something akin to pride, in the strangest way. Like a stifled fury, ringing a heavy church bell from somewhere far buried, and even if he couldn’t hear it, it still struck and reverberated, sound waves ignoring silly things like material blockades.

It reminded him of flames. As the amount of Burnish on television seemed to go up, the fires in town seemed to die down, and it left Lio begrudged and angry. He missed them.

He wanted to be like those fires, brilliant blazes that didn’t just ring, but were polyphony. Searing and wild and precise, not calculated but still careful in their chaos, like delicate dancers sending sparks with each step.

Lio stared at the blaze on the television as he sat in the living room, tying back his hair, watching that eerily silent flame as the Burnish were dragged away, and when he flexed his hand there was a dizzying _crack_ in his fingers. His father turned to stare at him at the sound, and he kept his hand still, his expression kept carefully as cold as the renewed rush of ice in his veins, even as something in him spiked in both terror and joy. It had been ice, not bones, that had cracked. He was sure. And while it returned doubly, his skin blanching twofold over that knuckle, the cold wracking him with shivers and dry heaves when he tried to sleep that night, he carried on through the stiffness and pulsing ache. Even when a spasm should have brought him to his knees, he gripped the bathroom counter and couldn’t feel his hands for a moment of it.

Someday, he knew, he would be _relentless_.

* * *

It was after a performance, when his clothes were changed and hair let down and his exhaustion couldn’t outweigh his pride, that his relatives praised him for the dance. _So delicate,_ they said, _so beautiful!_

They’d come all the way out to an aunt’s house for the party, out in the same countryside Lio sometimes missed with a desperation he didn’t always understand. Even she had joked that he was so dainty, so fragile-looking, just like a little music box ballerina.

Lio bared his teeth when he smiled, sometimes brushing his hair over his shoulder with vicious fingers, and they mistook it for excitement, or maybe a type of bashfulness. He was not delicate, not soft, not something that would break if prodded. That’s why he danced; to be strong, standing tall and straight and sharp, only metal running through his core. It was about precision and strength and hours of practice, cracked nails and bruises on his limbs and blisters on his feet that he didn’t even feel. Not beauty. Not sweetness.

He dug his fingernails into his palms and it didn’t so much as sting after the minutes, days, weeks, hours, years of strain on his body he had undergone to get here. An aunt or an uncle or some cousin several times removed placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it and commending his grace, and he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. It was too much, far too much, those hands were warm and it stung on the chill of his skin, burning too hot; more painful and foreign than any flame. He smiled and nodded, teeth clenched, swallowing against a dry mouth, as if something would come up if he really opened it. Something pulsed under his skin, a feeling he hadn’t felt in so long, and he dug his nails in harder, as if that would ground him. Something pulsed in his chest in return, almost violently, like a star in his ribcage, brilliant and shining and desperate to get free. It crashed against his ribs, again, and again, and again, and the thick permafrost under his skin began to crack ever so minutely at the crest of every one, as the ever-present tingle in his ears rang louder, and louder, and louder.

They crashed like church bells when he brusquely excused himself, hands clenched into fists, mouth clamped shut, the feeling in his limbs both gone and yet he knew they were shaking. Everything was too loud, and too much, and even the moon in the sky hurt to look at as every particle in him seemed to shake and thunder.

He made it into the driveway before he fell to his knees, not even feeling the dull _crack_ of kneecaps on pavement, the scrape of his palms on gravel when he still managed to catch himself. Static shuddered up through his limbs, something in them convulsing. His eyes stung and his head buzzed and there was something caught in the back of his throat, hot and cold and shaking all at the same time.

He opened his mouth to cough, as if to throw up, and this was almost a familiar routine. Like all the nights he’d gotten sick and had felt something burning through his stomach, his throat, his chest, and yet nothing would ever come up no matter how much he gagged. All the days he felt something in the back of his throat, and he said nothing as he held the tears resolutely behind his eyes until they froze and lodged there.

This time though, something seemed to dislodge somewhere, and he wasn’t sure if he was setting something in himself out of place or into it when he breathed out to scream, to cry, to _do something_ , and for once—something clicked. Like gas sparking to life, sparks into conflagration, years of pressure suddenly relieved and lifted off of his chest, off of every joint and nerve and atom in his body, but there was no sound. No words. Only…heat.

The clamour in his head crescendoed and burst, the violent pounding in his chest breaking free, all with a flash like a star going supernova. Everything seemed to rain down on him gently after such an explosion; the aftermath a melodious and dark quiet. The noise wasn’t frantic anymore, wasn’t harsh static pounding at every bone in his body to get out, get out, _get out_. It was music, soothing and moving in time to his own heart, and there was a sound in buried in it almost like words, like the way things sounded from underwater or from some distant radio signal.

It left behind warmth. The pleasant kind, not overwhelming or harmful, sparked in his chest and spiralled outwards, bringing back feeling into his limbs, tension and aches melting out of muscles, bones, nerves.

When Lio opened his eyes, seeing everything with what felt like a new clarity, it took a moment to realize what was so out of place. The warmth that fell over him, like sinking into a hot bath without the sting of heat on cold skin, wasn’t just in his head.

Flames danced along his skin, bright in a way that was soft more than searing. Most other children would have recoiled in shock, or in fear, or anger, but Lio only ran his fingers over his forearm, watching in a daze as they skittered along with his fingertips. They were laughing, in a dulled gentle way, as they danced in impossible shades of something like blue. He could’ve sworn he hadn’t been able to see as many colours only a moment ago. It felt more real than anything had in so long, the soft sensation of the fire and his own fingers a shock in their own mild yet clear feeling.

He sat up properly, with a slow groan. His limbs were pliant in a way they’d never been, and the ache in his bones had turned into a cocktail of relief and a decade’s worth of exhaustion, his own metal core going warm and pliable. He smiled, sleepy, shoulders slumped forwards, and stretched his arms out and watched the vibrant shadows play on the pavement beneath him.

Some minutes later, his mother found him out there with a gasp, watching in horror as her only child stood and smiled as he toyed with the flame in his hands, as it wisped off every inch of him. When she approached him, it was like his strings had been cut as the flames flickered out and he seemed to slump on his feet. She gingerly gathered him at arm's length, feeling how Lio’s skin buzzed with a lingering warmth even now.

It didn’t take long for her to gather up his father and announce to the rest of the family that they were leaving with some excuse about him being sick, or for her to guide him into the car from behind. She stared at something on his back, and he didn’t care to know what it was.

When he sat down, it was like a weight had been lifted, leaving him both rejuvenated and sleepily satisfied. Reforged, almost. Lio marveled at his own hands, at the way his fingers flexed, at the way there was no cold to creep back in, no stiffness and weight and numb tingling. He didn’t notice, but while his father started the car, his mother fretted over the footprints that had been melted into and nearly through the drivway’s pavement.

On the ride home, he stared out the window and watched as the countryside turned into the city, the lights melding into each other as the flames under his skin jingled in something like contentment. It was all so bright, so real, realer than real. The world was more solid and present than it had ever been, so close against his skin it almost made him feel raw.

When he looked away from the window, his mother smiled at him, face strained and hair pin-curled tight to her head as passing streetlights ebbed and flowed behind her. “Let’s just keep this quiet,” she said, in a voice that was low; dulcet and stern and afraid all at once. Because the Fotias were rich, and Lio was their only child, and they couldn’t afford a scandal like this now.

He barely registered that she had taken his hands in her own as she said this, smoothing thumbs over his knuckles to soothe at least one of them. It was almost hard not to laugh. He hadn’t been this relaxed in his life, he was sure.

He only nodded as a response. Her words felt like they were passing him by, like waves on a beach, while he could barely really hear them over the irresistible voices of the conflagration bouncing around inside his head.

Lio turned back towards the window, eyes wide as city streets passed by and he tried to make out the whispers in the lights that pulsed along with the flames, that star finally syncing with his own heartbeat, all of them composing music in his head, while his mother drew her hands into her lap. He pretended he didn’t notice, aware as if through a second set of eyes, as she grimaced at the stains and holes the heat of his hands had worn through her pristine satin gloves.

* * *

The next morning when he woke up, half asleep and half wondering if it had all been a dream, he was almost shocked to look in the mirror. Almost. He stared, and then slowly smiled at the sight of himself; his hair had been seared off up to his chin, perfectly hemmed along the edges. It was even stained a more vibrant green along the ends, like the glow of his flames. Or maybe it was that the world had grown brighter, more vibrant and real than it had ever been.

He smiled wider, and the uncertain glow in his chest chimed at his approval, turning the edges of his vision blurry with light and his fingers humming with heat. It felt like it vibrated in laughter when he nodded back, acknowledging it too, thanking it for the favour.

Before anyone could disturb him, he lit a careful flame in the palm of his hand, breathless as it danced just as they had when he was a child, just as he’d always wanted to. It’s joyful chimes didn’t disappear when he dismissed it with the swish of a hand, only faded into something gentler.

* * *

  
  


(It was something like years later, Lio close to nineteen, the first time he summoned his own armour. He’d made other things before; swords, shields, bows, bikes, you name it. Once, even a pair of sturdy gloves, with fingers so pointy they could’ve been called claws. The flames were always eager to follow his command, limber and quick and relentlessly neverending in granting his wishes. But this was new. He’d never tried this before.

And so he sat on a shitty abandoned motel bed, looking in the mirror at flames that refused to dissolve, only around the strange armoured boots. Almost as if they wanted him to get a good look in first, to show off their work, and he almost laughed when that line of thought was followed by a small assertion that _yes, he should_.

He marveled at the solid flames, maybe the most solid of anything he’d ever made. He gingerly glided fingers along, down one side that ran smooth and hot, wickedly sharp as a hot knife.

Playing along, he watched in the mirror as he stood up. It wasn’t difficult, he’d been practically dancing and cutting across the landscape in these what felt like mere moments ago, but he still went slowly. He knew he could stand in them, but thinking about it made it feel like the first time on skates. Once he was upright there was no stagger, no wobble, no teeter-tottering fear of falling. They were perfect. He _knew_ this. They fit better than his best shoes ever had.

Lio slowly raised his arms out to the sides, pivoting on one leg, like the slow turn of the Earth on its axis, like a tiny ballerina in it’s music box. When he came back around and slowed to a stop, he could only stare at himself with wide eyes.

 _Look at you,_ the flames said, with that vague suggestion of words shrouded in twinkling sound he’d gotten so good at tweaking into understanding. _Look at how far you’ve come. Far, so far. We’ve waited for you._

He held a hand to his chest, and thought _I know,_ and the flames rang and gleamed brightly with something like joy.)

**Author's Note:**

> absolutely huge shoutout to my friend who is a genius and pitched the idea of lio doing ballet because his armour looks like pointe shoes
> 
> fun facts about this one!  
> 1\. i wrote around half of this fic in an absolute frenzy while watching barbie in the nutcracker before christmas  
> 2\. odd one, but i have an allergy to the cold (yes. real thing) and realized partway through writing this how topical that could be for promare  
> 3\. you can all bet your asses the unwritten follow-up to this is that lio gives burnish kids dance lessons. maybe ill write that one for real someday. maybe. the only dance i've ever done is tap dancing so i don't know how i'd really go about it


End file.
